356 



names to the cycle of twelve years, as well as to 

 the small period of twelve days. The twelve 

 animals are used, says P. Gaubil*, to denote the 

 twelve moons of the year, the twelve hours of the 

 day and night, and the twelve celestial signs. 

 But all these divisions into twelve parts, marked 

 by different names, are, in the east of Asia, only 

 abstract or imaginary divisions : they serve to 

 recall to mind the motion of the Sun in the eclip- 

 tic ; but the real starry zodiac, as Mr. Bailly 

 very well observes^, and as is confirmed by the 

 more recent researches of Sir William Jones and 

 Mr. Colebrooke, consists of the twenty-eight 

 lunar mansions. It is true, they say in China, 

 that the Sun enters into the Ape, or the Hare, as 

 we say that it enters into the Twins or the Scor- 

 pion ; but the Chinese, the Hindoos, and the 

 Tartars class the stars only according to the sys- 

 tem of the nacshatras. The division of the zo- 

 diac into twenty-seven or twenty-eight parts, 

 known from Yemen to the plains of Turfan and 

 Cochinchina, belongs, as well as the small period 

 of seven days, to the most ancient monuments of 

 astronomy. 



Wherever we observe at the same time several 

 divisions of the ecliptic, differing not in the num- 

 bers of the asterisms, but in their denominations^ 



* Souciet, vol. 2, p. 156, 174. 

 + Astr. ind. p. 5. 



